


(never meant for you to) fix yourself

by ficlicious, KakushiMiko



Series: Legends of Dust & Gold [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A Stark Always Pays His Debts, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Big Brother Tony, Canon-Typical Violence, Cap_Ironman Reverse Bang Challenge, Comic Book Violence, Identity Porn, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Serial Fic, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:03:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7194452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakushiMiko/pseuds/KakushiMiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It’s hard to look at himself in the mirror sometimes, and those days are the ones his beard is at its scruffiest because he can’t bring himself to shave with a stranger staring back at him. The man who looks back at him is hollow inside, dead and empty, and there’s nothing but arctic cold in his eyes. That’s not the man Edwin Jarvis raised. It’s certainly not the man Ho Yinsen gave his life to save.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But it’s the man that keeps him alive when all he wants to do is crawl into a bottle and drown himself at the bottom. It’s the man that gets things done. It’s the man that survives. It may not be the man he thinks he should be, but it’s the man he is. Sooner or later, he’ll make peace with that.</em>
</p><p>When someone presents you an offer that seems to good to be true, it usually is. Tony Stark finds that out the hard way. The real question is whether he can keep his mistakes from bringing down everyone else he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(never meant for you to) fix yourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KakushiMiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakushiMiko/gifts).



> First off, general thank yous go out to my semi-regular beta readers/co-conspirators. This fic would not be so meaty – nor have so much more in the wings to come, no less – without lunamax1214, Medie, Bragi151 and silvershadowkit. Bragi and Kit in particular love nothing more than to pile more plot twists and suggestions on me, and honestly, that's why it's so goddamn big. 
> 
> You're all fabulous, people. I <3 your faces. 
> 
> And a final thanks to Kit for the last-minute save on the summary that isn't lifted directly from the fic. Whee.
> 
> Also, many many thanks to Fall Out Boy for "Centuries". This fic was heavily influenced by its lyrics, and I listened to it way too much over the last couple of months as I wrote this, and will no doubt continue to listen to it as I finish the next fic. 
> 
> This is a complete fic, meeting the challenge requirements, but it's certainly not the end of the story. This fic comprises about 1/3 of what the outline ballooned into, and there simply wasn't enough time to complete all 50 or so thousand words (I suspect this will end up being) for a single fanfic. 
> 
> Please enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing. And please enjoy Miko's art. She's fantastic, and an absolute pleasure to work with.
> 
>  **General Warning**  
>  Most of the Bad Shit that happens to Tony happens while he is technically underage.

_Mummified my teenage dreams_  
_No, it’s nothing wrong with me_  
_The kids are all wrong, the story’s all off_  
_Heavy metal broke my heart_  
_Come on, come on and let me in_  
_The bruises on your thighs just like my fingerprints_  
_And this is supposed to match the darkness that you felt_  
_I never meant for you to fix yourself._

**Fall Out Boy, “Centuries”**

###  **Part I: The Darkness That You Felt**

The problem with making deals with the devil is, eventually the devil comes, calling payment due. It’s been a good few years, out from under Obie’s thumb, left alone to design and construct and engineer to his heart’s content, but he knew it wouldn’t last forever. The trinkets and weapons he builds for the Baron are pittances against his true capabilities. One day, he knew, the Baron would knock at his door with his unfailingly polite, chilling smile, and ask Tony to do something much, much larger.

It’s hard to look at himself in the mirror sometimes, and those days are the ones his beard is at its scruffiest because he can’t bring himself to shave with a stranger staring back at him. The man who looks back at him is hollow inside, dead and empty, and there’s nothing but arctic cold in his eyes. That’s not the man Edwin Jarvis raised. It’s certainly not the man Ho Yinsen gave his life to save.

But it’s the man that keeps him alive when all he wants to do is crawl into a bottle and drown himself at the bottom. It’s the man that gets things done. It’s the man that survives. It may not be the man he thinks he should be, but it’s the man he is. Sooner or later, he’ll make peace with that.

Tony sighs and downs the last of his ice-cold coffee, grimacing a little at the aftertaste. Too long on the burner, too long on the desk. It’s not a pleasant sensation. But he’s almost done. He’s too close to being finished to break for a fresh pot of coffee. Strucker’s given him his marching orders and, if experience under the Baron’s employ has taught him anything, it’s that efficiency and expediency are the things most appreciated.

He runs his tongue over his teeth, trying to clear the lingering taste of old coffee out of his mouth, then reaches up and snaps his welding mask down over his face again. The torch roars to life in his hand again, and he bends over the workbench to finish soldering the final components of the repulsor rig.

It’ll all be over soon, one way or the other. He can deal with his existential crisis then.

 **oOoOoOo  
** _Ten Years Ago_

It’s cliche as hell, but Tony’s whole life turns upside down on a dark and stormy night.

Life’s been good lately. He’s just gotten his acceptance letter to MIT and Dad’s finally taking notice of him for the first time in years, showing his pride at Tony’s accomplishment by gifting Tony the keys to his long-disused workshop in the basement on the Manor. Mama’s planning a victory vacation in Italy, visiting long-neglected family in Tuscany and Rome. For once, Tony’s looking forward to the future, looking forward to making plans and taking MIT by storm. Looking forward to a European vacation with his mother, even though she’s likely to spend a lot of time at her favorite spas and drag him along for the ride. Looking forward to finally, maybe, having that conversation with Dad about finding a place for him at Stark Industries, let him learn the the business from the inside, let him contribute to the family fortunes. He’s going to inherit, after all, and he’s impatient enough to want to get a head start on it now.

Life’s looking pretty good. So of course it all gets ruined before it can even begin.

Tony is shaken roughly awake in a room filled with the grey, gloomy light of false dawn. He comes off the pillow, bleary and panicking, because the dark shape leaning over him has a hand over his mouth to keep him from crying out. Tony struggles with his assailant, half-asleep and flailing, until his fuzzy brain recognizes Jarvis’s profile.

He stares at Jarvis in confusion, blinking sleep out of his eyes. It only takes a second before unease starts crawling through his gut. Even in the murky dark, Jarvis is pale, his face tight and drawn, his eyes lined and pained. “Quietly, Tony,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “I am removing my hand, but you must be _quiet,_ do you understand?”

Slowly, Tony nods, bewildered and growing increasingly anxious at the urgency in Jarvis’s voice. The hand disappears from his mouth and Jarvis straightens up. “What’s going on?” Tony whispers, desperate to know what’s shaken the most unshakeable man in his life. “What’s happening?”

Jarvis just shakes his head, mouth a thin line of determination. “There’s no time, Tony,” he replies, and lays a neat stack of clothing — nondescript jeans and an unmarked tee-shirt, socks and underwear and shoes on top — beside Tony on the bed. “Dress swiftly, son. They’re coming.”

 _Who’s coming?_ Tony tries to ask, but his mouth is suddenly too dry to form words. To his own credit, his hands don’t shake as he throws the covers off himself and pulls the things Jarvis laid out, but they want to. He hauls his jeans up around his hips with one hand, his shirt over his head with the other, doesn’t bother tying his sneakers, just tucks the laces in and slips his feet in after them.

Jarvis divests him of practically everything electronic he owns: his cell phone, his watch, his laptop and his PDA, quelling Tony’s instinctive protests before they can do more than form vague and discomforting thoughts in his head. If Tony’s being honest with himself, Jarvis is scaring the crap out of him. Panic claws at his chest, shocks his heart into pumping twice as fast, twice as hard. Adrenaline dumps into his bloodstream, hammers his pulse into a fight-of-flight shriek through his body.

 _I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on,_ he wants to say. _Jarvis, I’m afraid,_ he wants to admit. _Where are we going?_ he wants to know, but he can’t find the saliva or the focus to verbalize any of it.

When he’s satisfied Tony doesn’t have anything more technologically advanced than an electric toothbrush on him, Jarvis wordlessly takes Tony’s hand and all but pulls him along to the back wall of his bedroom. Tony knows there’s a secret passageway there, one that leads down to a sub-basement, under the lake on the property next door, and through the underbelly of Central Park before exiting in Central Park near the Bowman Bridge. It was built back in the early 1900s, when the Manor was originally constructed, there for the safety of the Stark family and their heirs should the manor or the city come under attack by the family’s enemies. Tony never thought he’d have to use it.

Yet here he is, being pulled along like a recalcitrant toddler, tugged and manhandled and all but dragged through the dark and the damp and the silence, following behind a man who shouldn’t know the passage is there at all.

Jarvis keeps his silence until they’re well past the point where it should be safe to talk, and says practically nothing until the tunnel disgorges them in the middle of Central Park, from a trap door cleverly concealed in the grassy sod. Only then does Jarvis take a break, dragging in a deep breath and letting it out in a relieved sigh which, in turn, does nothing for Tony’s state of mind.

“Jarvis,” Tony says, irritated and panicking and worried and furious all twisting through his stomach in a giant knot, “Jarvis, what the hell is going on? Why’d you drag me out of bed? What’s happened?”

Jarvis has never looked so tired and old as he does right now, and the man is barely in his late 50s. He doesn’t slump or slouch, because he never does, but he does look like he _wants_ to, at least. “Many things, Tony,” Jarvis said, and exhaustion is evident in his tone, his faded eyes, in the lines and the shadows of his face and the grey in his hair. “But the thing of greatest importance I’m afraid is…” He breaks off, something choking him, and Tony looks around in alarm for any of these mysterious “they” Tony allegedly just escaped through the tunnels.

“Jarvis?”

Jarvis clears his throat a couple of times, hard, and schools his face back into neutrality. “Yes, well,” he says, blustering in the way he does when he’s been thrown off balance and needs to regain his composure before he says another word. It’s only partially successful, though only a family insider would be able to tell. “I’m afraid to inform you, Mister Stark,” he says, stiff and formal, “that your father and mother were killed tonight. And unless I am very much mistaken, there are assassins moving through your home as we speak, searching for you.”

The bottom goes out of Tony’s world. He’s fallen over his ass before without realizing his knees buckled under him, and all he can hear is a dull, building roar like an oncoming train pounding in his ears. "Why?" he asks faintly, and his eyes are wet and hot, burning and stinging, and scalding liquid sears his cheeks as the tears spill over. "What? Why?"

Jarvis closes his eyes, pain carving deep lines in his forehead. "Because they were in the way," he says with difficulty, "and Mister Stane grew tired of waiting for Howard to die on his own. And you," Jarvis says hoarsely, and has to stop to clear his throat again, "I wasn't in time to save sir and ma'am, Tony," he admits, defeated and miserable and trying to hide none of it at the moment, "but at least I could save you."

**oOoOoOo**

A soft knock on the door brings Tony out of his hyperfocus. His eyes are gritty, burning, behind the welder’s face mask, and he blinks tiredly as he switches off the torch. He raises the face shield and spins on his chair. Wanda’s standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in each hand. “It’s been hours, Tony,” she says softly, padding across the workshop in her socks to lay the cup beside him on the workbench.

“Already?” Hauling the welder’s mask off entirely, he sets it beside the other one on his bench and grasps his cup gratefully. “Feels like I just sat down.”

Wanda folds herself onto his spare stool, all lean, long legs and waifish figure and haunted look, and wraps slender fingers around her own steaming cup. “Hours,” she confirms again. “Pietro is cooking,” she adds, after a moment and a sip of her coffee. “Mushroom and potato soup. I will bring you a bowl when he is done.”

Tony wants to argue with her, tell her he’s going to be too busy to stop and eat anything, but past experience has taught him that for all she’s barely eighteen, Wanda is a tyrant who stands implacable in the face of Tony’s defiance. Tony can protest all he wants, but in the end, he’ll take the soup and eat it, while she smiles benevolently at him. “Sure,” he agrees.

Wanda blinks, but is otherwise unfazed. “Whoever you are,” she says, “and whatever you have done with Tony, when we get him back, could you please leave the manners behind?” Tony swats half-heartedly at her knee, and she smiles at him over the rim of her mug. “You need sleep too, Tony,” she continues. “It’s been nearly three days. You’re hitting your limit.”

“I know.” Tony drains his coffee in a long, continuous swallow, feeling it burn his tongue, throat, and settle hot in his stomach. Exhaustion is catching up, making his arms heavy and his mind sluggish. “I’m almost done. _We’re_ almost done.”

Wanda is quiet for a long moment, but she watches Tony as she sips her tea. “Are we?” she asks lightly.

Tony draws in a deep breath, lets it out in a long, drawn-out sigh, and roughly scrubs his face with the palms of both hands. “One thing at a time,” he says tiredly. “I’m not thinking that far ahead right now.”

“I understand,” Wanda says, and her hand slides over Tony’s shoulder, pressing warmly. “But you will have to eventually. You’ll have to face him sooner or later, Tony.” She squeezes one last time, then smooths his shirt over his shoulder again. “Thirty minutes,” she reminds firmly. “And I will return with food.”

Tony nods, watching her leave. There are times when he wonders what good he’s ever done in his life. And then Wanda smiles at him, or Pietro shoots him a conspiratorial look sharing a joke, and he figures saving the Maximoff twins are a good start.

 **oOoOoOo  
** _Eight Years Ago_

It takes a long time to get comfortable calling Jarvis “Dad”.

Tony doesn’t really know why he has such trouble with it. It’s not like Jarvis hasn’t been his practical father figure since birth. And it’s not like he was particularly close with Howard either, not until recently anyway. But there’s always been a divide between him and Jarvis. He’s always known that Jarvis was _the help_ and not family, no matter how much closer Tony was to him than his own blood relatives.

Tony hates his new life. He hates his cropped blond spikes. He hates his clothes. He hates that Jarvis — Dad — won’t let him have a laptop or computer, because he’s worried Tony is going to give away their safehouse somehow. He hates that he’s still in high school, when he could have finished every class three times over in the few months he’s been here. He hates that he’s not at MIT, because that’s where he should be, learning all the tricks they have to teach him, developing his own. He hates that he’s in some backwater nothing town, dressed in jeans and plaids and off-the-shelf sneakers, slumped sullenly in a chair just outside the principal’s inner office.

Through the frosted glass, he can make out the silhouette of the principal as she paces and talks on the phone. Tiredly, he scrubs at his face, rubbing his palms briskly over his cheeks. He can already hear Jarv—Dad’s brewing lecture, full of admonishments about chronic incaution and reckless behaviour. He’s heard it a dozen times already in the last year, always delivered in Dad’s gently clipped Disappointed Voice; Tony’s largely immune to it by now.

Finally, the principal’s door opens, and she stands in the doorway, staring at him in her usual disapproving manner. She doesn’t even hold a candle to Jar-Dad. Tony is not impressed.  “Mr. Carter?”

He’s even sick of the fake names he has to use, even if this one isn’t so bad. “What?” he says sullenly. “I don’t really need to be here for this, do I? Can’t you just, like, record your lecture and send it to me? I promise I’ll watch it.”

The thundercloud on her face grows darker and more ominous. “This is not an appropriate time for jokes, Mr. Carter,” she says, eyes narrowing. “Half the chemistry lab is now unusable because of your cavalier disregard for safety procedures. Consider yourself fortunate that you’re not being expelled.”

“So fortunate,” Tony says through gritted teeth, because being expelled was kind of what he was going for. It’s dangerous, and he knows it, but he hates this shitty little town, and getting kicked out of school forces them to pick up and move again. “Can I go already?”

“We’ll see you in a week, Mr. Carter,” the principal says darkly, then withdraws back into her office.

Tony glowers at the closed door for a long moment, then mutters, “Not if I have anything to say about it,” picks up his bag and resists the urge to kick his chair over on the way out.

Even though he knows Jarvis is waiting for him, Tony takes his time wandering home. He’s in no rush to get yelled at, in even less to have Jarvis’s disappointment bring his guilt and shame and anger to the forefront again. He turns right when he should have turned left, and is halfway down the alley before he realizes someone’s getting the crap beaten out of them on the other end.

Tony’s supposed to stay away from confrontation, just walk the other way when he sees it, because he can’t get involved with the police if they should happen to show up. But he’s already moving in the direction of the yelling and cursing and dull, sick thuds of flesh on flesh. He’s around the corner before he really processes he’s involving himself in a random alley fight. Adrenaline dumps into his bloodstream, sending a surge of anxious anticipation through him.

Three older guys have a skinny blond kid held down, and are laughing and punching at him while he kicks and screams and yells and glares up from under the half-mask of blood on his face.

“Hey!” Tony yells, and balls a fist, eyes narrow and jaw jutting forward. “Assholes!”

The three bigger guys pause what they’re doing — one with his first up, ready to hit the kid flat on the ground, the other recovering from a kick, and the third leaning against the wall waiting for his turn. They’re all bigger, stronger, meaner, more confident. Tony doesn’t give a damn. He’s always been good at calculating angles and acceptable risk margins.

The guy smoking pushes himself off the wall and flicks his butt to the side with a snap of his fingers. “Wrong alley, blondie,” he says with a smirk. “Better walk away.”

It’s reckless and it’s insane, but Tony’s had enough of people telling him where to go and what to do and how to act, and the jarring reminder that his hair is bleached instead of its usual glossy black is like gasoline on the fire. “Why don’t you come over here and make me, jackass?” he snarls, and the bones in his hand creak from how tightly he’s clenching it.

The fight is over embarrassingly quick, but Tony feels like he made a good showing of himself. The smoker lunges for Tony, in a telegraphed overhand grab. Tony ducks under it and socks his head into Smoker’s gut, hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs. The other two clamber off the blond kid and thunder towards him. He manages to kick one guy in the balls, crumpling him to the ground in the fetal position, but the other one tackles him, pins him, and starts pounding fists into his face.

Until a trash can lid swings out of nowhere and cracks the guy in the temple, swings and impacts again, toppling him sideways, sliding him off Tony. Tony rolls to his feet, spitting blood, to see the blond kid, face covered in blood and one eye swelling shut, glaring at him.

Tony doesn’t pause, just grabs his bag and the blond kid’s hand and starts running, pulling him along out of the alleyway. Halfway down the road, Tony starts laughing. His head is pounding, his face is a throbbing, painful, bloody bruise and he may have a couple of loose teeth, but he collapses on a park bench, the kid collapsing beside him in an asthmatic wheeze and a scramble for a rescue inhaler.

“No-body.. Asked you…. To step in,” he gasps angrily, shaking the inhaler and sucking a hit off it. “I can… handle … myself.”

“ _Clearly.”_ Tony rolls his eyes and sags back against the bench, sprawling out and trying to catch his breath. “You had ‘em right where you wanted ‘em, champ. On top of you and pounding away like gorillas.” He sucks in a quick breath, and then lets it out slow, breathing back under control. Then shuts his eyes. “Besides, I wasn’t _saving_ you, princess.”

“Yeah? It sure looked like it from my point of view.”

God, he’s just a bundle of attitude. Tony cracks an eye and stares at him for a moment, assessing him. “Maybe I just felt like a fight, ever think about that? God. How old are you anyway, six?”

Blondie’s teeth clench and his eyes narrow. “Sixteen,” he spits.

“Bullshit.” It’s out before Tony can stop it, but honestly, he’d probably say it anyway. “You miss a few critical growth spurts there, Tilt-A-Whirl?”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Blondie says dangerously. “But yeah. I missed a few critical growth spurts. I have a genetic condition. Got a problem with it?”

Tony blinks, incredulous. “Why would I?”

Blondie sulks, grim and gloomy. “Everyone else does.”

Tony lets his head thump gently back against the top of the bench, and grins widely. “Well, today’s your lucky day, sunshine,” he drawls. “I’m not everyone else.” Without looking at him, Tony shoves his hand sideways, and is left hanging for a moment before a thin hand, as fragile as bird bones, slides into his with a surprisingly firm grip. “Tony Carter,” he says, before he remembers he’s not supposed to use his name. “Well, Edward Carter, really,” he adds, hastily backtracking, “but my friends call me Tony.”

“Nice to meet you Tony,” Blondie says, with only a hint of wheezing left in his voice. “I’m Steve. Steve Rogers.”

**oOoOoOo**

Dinner is quiet, just the three of them sitting around their battered kitchen table with bowls of Pietro’s soup and loaves of crusty day-old bread. Tony’s spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl twice before Wanda stops refilling it for him. He eyes her as she ladles another spoonful into her own bowl, and she smiles beatifically at him.

“You’re such a mother hen,” he grumbles, and drains his water glass.

“You need it,” Pietro says with a smirk, already on his fifth bowl and showing no signs of slowing. Tony once calculated his caloric needs at bordering ten thousand a day; he’ll probably eat three more bowls of soup before he’s full. “You are shit at taking care of yourself. Without us—” He gestures between himself and his sister. “—you would starve, dehydrate or go insane from lack of sleep.”

Tony eyeballs him too, but Pietro’s nothing if not accustomed to Tony’s dirty looks. “And it would be _so much_ quieter.”

“Ah, but you would miss our noise and our distractions.” Pietro grins cheekily and ladles up his sixth bowl of soup. “When are we going?” he asks, when he sits back down.

Tony’s shoulders tense at the abrupt change of conversation; it takes effort to relax them again. “Tonight,” he says, tipping his chair back onto two legs and balancing. “Strucker wants information from SHIELD servers, and their change of shift happens at two in the morning, local. Probably best to hit them then.”

Pietro nods. “How much more does the Baron require?”

Tony grimaces. “Technically, this should just about clear it. But…” He trails off with an expansive shrug. “There’s always going to be another favor, another thing to do, another mission to run.

Wanda, silent until now, sets her teacup gently on the table. “Strucker does not intend to let us go,” she says, meeting first Tony and then Pietro’s eyes. “In us he sees power he must leash and control, lest it turn on him.” She picks up her teacup again, swirling the contents around in the bottom. “You have contingency plans, Tony.”

“Yes.” Tony, in fact, has many contingency plans.

Wanda doesn’t look at Tony as she finishes her tea and gets up to start clearing the table. “Move them into place,” she says quietly. “Please. If we stay here much longer…”

Tony reaches out and wraps his hand around her wrist, squeezing reassuringly. “If that’s what you think I should do,” he says.

Wanda’s hand turns under his palm, and her fingers link through his. “Thank you, Tony,” she says. “It is what I think.”

“Then I will. We’re almost done,” Tony says soothingly. “We’re getting out. I promise. Even if it means reaching out to Captain Glitterpants and his band of merry men.”

###  **Part II: I Am the Opposite of Amnesia**

_Seven Years Ago_

Tony’s in love with Steve long before he realizes it. From the day they met, they’ve been inseparable. They might have met as two pissed-off kids with chips on their shoulders seeing a kindred spirit, but it stops being just about that  within the first two days. Almost overnight, Tony becomes a model student, risking nothing that might take him away from Steve’s side, and Steve… well, Tony has no idea of what he was like before, but he certainly seems happy once Tony becomes his friend, happy and less eager to get into fist fights.

No one else at their school pays any attention to them, which suits Tony just fine. He has no time for the bullshit politics of high school social circles. But he catches Steve staring after the jocks every now and then, wistful and faintly angry.

It’s three months before Steve tells Tony about Bucky, who used to be his friend when he was just as tiny and scrawny, but when Bucky hit a growth spurt and filled out, he tried out for football and got busy with his friends and how Steve was initially invited to the parties and the get-togethers and the games, but he never quite fit in, no matter how hard he tried.

There’s a note in Steve’s voice that Tony doesn’t like, and it stews around in his head for days before he realizes Steve sounds bitter and resentful, like someone who got dumped by their boyfriend. Tony’s somewhat surprised to discover how jealous and anxious he is at the thought of Steve dating someone, and when he further examines it, as he’s stretched out on his stomach on the floor, popcorn on one side and Steve on the other, TV playing some war movie he’s barely noticed, he realizes why he’s jealous.

He’s in love with Steve.

“Huh,” he says, absently stuffing popcorn into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully.

Steve drags his eyes away from the screen and glances at Tony. “Something wrong?”

With a dawning sense of wonder, Tony stares at Steve’s face. The light from the TV dances over his face, shines in his eyes. There’s suddenly a yawning pit opening up beneath Tony and, even though he’s not moving, Tony feels like he’s falling headfirst. It’s yet another thing that’s cliche as hell, but Steve’s eyes are huge in his thin face, deep and blue.

“Tony?”

Before he can talk himself out of it, before he lets nerves set in, Tony leans in and kisses Steve. Steve’s lips are soft, slightly chapped, and taste like salted butter, and Tony’s heart is pounding in his ears. A black hole opens in his stomach as it sinks in that _he’s kissing Steve._

Steve jerks back and his eyes are impossibly wide. “What are you doing?” he whispers.

Tony cringes away, and anxiety blooms into full-blown panic. “Nothing,” he says, stumbling over his words in his rush to get them out. “I’m sorry, I thought… Nothing, Steve. Can we forget it? Please. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

Steve stares at him for a long time, long after Tony’s babbled apologies trail off into silence. “It’s not a mistake,” he says finally, and a tiny grin grows on his face. “Not a mistake,” he repeats, while Tony’s still trying to process the first sentence. Steve shifts his weight to one elbow, and reaches out with a hesitant hand, fingers trembling slightly, to touch Tony’s cheek. “Not a mistake,” he repeats, soft and soothing.

With surprising strength, Steve tugs Tony’s head towards him, and angles his face to fit their mouths back together. It’s just as tentative a kiss as the first, strange and awkward, but then Steve’s fingers drift across Tony’s jaw, and Tony makes a soft, involuntary whimpering noise, and Steve inhales sharply through his nose.

And then Steve is kissing him like Tony is vital for life, like air or water. Tony makes another noise in the back of his throat, and like a trigger, it breaks the fragile moment and sends them scrambling for each other.

Somehow, Tony ends up on bottom, but he isn’t complaining, not when he’s finally got his hands in Steve’s hair, soft and fine and thick, not when Steve’s sprawled half over him, with deep, demanding kisses Tony never dreamed he’d be capable of.

Gradually, the kisses drift from frantic and hungry into slow, lazy ones, kisses that have Tony practically purring under Steve’s careful caresses of his hair and face. Finally, Steve pulls back, breathless and reaching for his inhaler, never breaking eye contact with Tony. And there’s something in his gaze, something soft and tender and wondering, that makes Tony feel breathless himself.

Steve takes two hits off his inhaler, and stops touching Tony long enough to recap it, then returns his hands to Tony’s hair. For his part, Tony can’t think of a thing to say, but that’s okay too, because he’s certain the goofy, hazy smile he’s wearing says it all.

\------

They’re together six months when Steve gets sick. At first, Tony doesn’t worry. For all his attitude and assertiveness, Steve has never been in the best of health, and Tony’s gotten used to constant colds and sniffles and bad days. They always pass, and he can dote on Steve for the duration, so he learns not to panic every time Steve coughs.

But he doesn’t get better after the first week, and he doesn’t get better after the second week, and by the third week, Steve’s mother Sarah is looking more drawn and haggard than ever before. Before Tony can get up the nerve to ask her, Sarah takes him aside and quietly informs him that the doctor has been by and Steve’s condition is worsening. She says that they might have to prepare for the worst, and that’s where Tony stops paying attention, because there’s a buzzing in his ears he can’t hear past.

Jarvis fusses over him for days, but Tony barely pays attention to that. He becomes an expert in Steve’s particular condition overnight, consuming and digesting every scrap of information he can pull off the computers at school. Everything he reads tells him that it’s incurable, untreatable, hopeless, pointless.

And then he finds hope. It’s a thin thread, barely there at all, but on an obscure website at four in the morning on day three without sleep, he reads about the promising treatment plan offered by a Dr. Abraham Erskine, still experimental but technically FDA approved. It’s expensive, and uncertain, but the science is sound by Tony’s judgement. If anyone’s going to give Steve a shot, it’s Erskine.

He doesn’t even hesitate as he signs Steve up for the procedure, whipping together a letter outlining how dire his situation is, and then pays for it all with money from his trust fund, which only he can touch. He’s not stupid enough to make it a direct payment; he reroutes the money through two dozen banks all over the world, finally sending it to Rebirth Labs marking it as an anonymous donation to treat Steve Rogers.

When Jarvis manages to shuffle him into the bed a few hours later, Tony sleeps the best sleep he’s had in awhile.

**oOoOoOo**

There might be something to Wanda’s constant reminders to sleep, Tony thinks, spinning abruptly in the air to avoid an arrow launched from the rooftop. His reaction time is shot to hell, and it’s because he’s running on fumes. Too many hours in the workshop, welding and soldering until his eyes are dry and burning, all to prepare for this mission. Not enough eating or sleeping. Not nearly enough.

He barely had enough energy to retrieve the tech he was after before leaving. He’s too tired for banter, but he forces joviality into his tone as he circles around Hawkeye. “I thought you never missed, Legolas,” he taunts, and rolls hard right in a tight spin to avoid the next volley. “I can recommend a good optometrist in case you want to get your eyesight checked.”

“I’m not convinced you’re really worth the full effort, Tin Man,” Hawkeye calls up, nocking and loosing another arrow that drives Tony left this time. “You’re not even a real supervillain anyway. It's hard to get excited about stopping the forces of evil when said evil pulls the fire alarm and risks getting caught in order to evacuate a compound before he blows it up.”

Even with his prodigious brain, it takes Tony a second to parse that. Oddly, it stings. “Hey,” he protests. “I cause property damage and destroy government labs and weaken the nation’s ability to defend itself against people like me. I'm a perfectly good villain. Fox News says so.”

Hawkeye snorts, and looses another arrow. “Might be the only time they're actually right about something. A perfectly _good_ villain.”

Tony dodges the arrow again with little effort. “You’re hurting my feelings here, Robin Hood. And your arrows are starting to annoy me.”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Hawkeye says, drawing the bow again. “I’m easily bored. You’re a shiny thing in the sky. That usually means target practice.”

“You have the attention span of a gerbil.” Tony takes the chance and alights on the edge of the roof, wary and alert, ready to take off again in an instant. “You gonna shoot me now that I’m making it easy for you?”

Hawkeye lowers his bow with a smirk. “Stationary targets are less fun,” he says. “I live for the challenge.” He stares at Tony thoughtfully for a moment, chewing on the corner of his lip. “How long do you plan on running this game, Iron Man?”

“What game?”

“This…” Hawkeye spins his hand lazily. “Look-at-me-I’m-a-big-bad-guy game. It clearly isn’t you, dude.” Tony jerks a little, and Hawkeye smirks again. “Yeah, I notice shit. I notice that you go out of your way to avoid casualties. I notice you care when someone does get hurt, whether that’s the witch or the speedster or even one of us. You’re not in it for money, or power, or even shits and giggles. You have an agenda.”

Inside the suit, Tony blinks rapidly, trying to come up with an answer that isn’t going to blow his cover, his mission, the twins, anything. “So what if I do?” It isn’t his best comeback, but it’ll have to suffice.

Hawkeye shrugs. “Nothing wrong with having an agenda, except when the agenda makes everyone think you need to be brought down hard. So. You wanna share with the class, or do you want me to guess?”

Tony cuts the external speakers, frantic and off balance. This was not figured into his plans. “Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch. Update?”

“Two minutes left on the download, Iron Man,” Pietro says, his voice distorted by the vocal scrambler embedded in his uniform. “SHIELD agents are attempting to break down the door. Scarlet Witch is dealing with them.”

“Gently, I hope. Keep me updated. I’m … “ Tony eyes Hawkeye again. “Tied up dealing with an Avenger.”

“Understood.”

Hawkeye tilts his head. “I can frame my answer in the form of a question, if that’s more your speed.”

It’s time for a change of conversation. Tony activates the external speakers again. “You know, I’m actually kind of insulted,” he says. “Not only do they send a throwback to the eleventh century to confront the cutting edge of the twenty-first, Captain Crossbow doesn’t even want to do his job. Can I get a recount of whatever election resulted in you showing up?”

“Nah,” Hawkeye says with an easy shrug. “The others are off fighting real evil today. Batroc the Leaper, I think. I volunteered to gear up and come out if you popped up anywhere.”

“I rank under Batroc? Really?” Tony clears the incredulous squeak out of his voice by clearing his throat. “I mean, what kind of messed-up ranking system does SHIELD even have when a guy whose portfolio revolves around jumping and kicking and robbing banks is classed more dangerous than a man who can take out an aircraft carrier any time he feels like it.”

“Mostly that Batroc kills people,” Hawkeye replies, “and you don’t. Maybe you should go ahead and take out that aircraft carrier if you want to be taken seriously.”

“I’m not going to kill people just to move up the villain rankings,” Tony says. “And should an Avenger really be advocating mass murder? Aren’t you supposed to stand against that sort of thing?”

“Not advocating anything,” Hawkeye says. “Just pointing out that there’s a clear solution to your problem. I’m practical like that. You not wanting to kill is a whole different problem.” He pauses. “I’m not going to offer you a solution to that, in case you were curious.”

“Never crossed my mind,” Tony says honestly. A flashing light on the HUD catches his attention, and he jerks his head left, in time to see a quinjet approaching. “Backup incoming?”

Hawkeye doesn’t turn to look, just smiles. “Yeah. I guess that’s your cue.”

“Quicksilver?” Tony says, over the private comm.

“We have the information, Iron Man,” Wanda says calmly. “We are leaving as soon as Quicksilver finds an appropriate exit.”

“Roger,” Tony says, then switches feeds again. “Yeah, Katniss. I guess it is my cue.” He pauses for a second. “Do you need to shoot some more arrows at me? Make it look good?”

Hawkeye shakes his head. “Naw. But listen, before you go.” Making careful, telegraphed movements, he reaches into a belt pouch and pulls out… a business card? Tony watches both the quinjet and Hawkeye’s approach as his eyebrows attempt to disappear into his hairline. “I’m really good at recognizing good people in bad situations,” Hawkeye says, offering the card. “And I’m also really good at getting them out. Call me when you’re ready. You and your partners.”

For some weird reason, Tony’s throat has a giant lump in it. He gingerly takes the card between the thumb and finger of his gauntlet. One side reads _Clint “Hawkeye” Barton. World’s Greatest Marksman. Saving People, Shooting Things._ The other side is just a ten-digit phone number, which Tony quickly memorizes. “Has anyone told you that giving out what is presumably your real name and phone number to people who have shot at you might not be the smartest notion, Sailor Mars?”

“I told you.” And Hawkeye’s smirk is so wide his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I live for the challenge. Better go before Spangles shows up. He’ll probably just try to capture you.”

“You’re weird, Barton.” The name tastes strange in Tony’s mouth, but he tucks the card in a small storage panel on the suit’s leg, and steps back. “I’ll think about it.” Without waiting for a response, he jumps and burns the jet boots, corkscrewing around the descending quinjet. He tips a jaunty wave to Captain America, sitting in the pilot’s seat, trying to ignore the way his heart trips at the sight of his face.

 _Get over it already,_ he tells himself as he soars away, faster than a quinjet can follow. But it’s pointless. He hasn’t gotten over Steve in six years, and he’s never going to.

\-----

Natasha detaches herself from the shadows and joins Clint, watching Iron Man rocket away. “That went well,” she says, shading her eyes to track the tiny dot weaving between buildings. “You were right. He doesn’t want to be with Strucker. Doesn’t mean he isn’t involved up to his eyeballs.”

“True,” Clint says, down on one knee and folding down his bow, as the quinjet settles in for a landing. “All the more reason to lure him over to this side so he can help us stop whatever it is HYDRA has planned.”

“One of these days,” Natasha says quietly, “your need to save people is going to get you killed.”

Clint squints up at Natasha and grins. “I live for the challenge.”

###  **Part III: Just One Mistake Is All It Will Take**

_Six years ago_

Tony picks at his lunch as he watches Steve across the quad. The three months of intense treatments Steve underwent performed miracles, correcting the genetic damage and allowing his body to catch up to all the growing it was supposed to do. It was one of the biggest shocks of Tony’s life to see him get off the plane six-four and solid muscle, and it was disorienting to suddenly be the short one.

But it was still Steve, still his face under the broader planes, under the shaggier hair. Still his smile, his eyes lighting in joy, his hands that cupped Tony’s face, his lips that kissed him. And it had been hard not to take joy in the absolute glee with which Steve did things now. With the awestruck astonishment Sarah Rogers kept touching her son’s face, shoulder, arms, like he was ephemera and would vanish if she didn’t keep checking.

Tony’s chest always grows warm when he sees that, but he keeps his mouth shut. As far as the Rogerses know, some anonymous donor earmarked money specifically for a kid out of options, and Steve’d gotten chosen by luck. No need at all for them to know the money came from him. There would be too many questions, ones he would want to answer.

Things changed when Steve returned to school, though, and Tony knows he should have figured they would. He watches the popular kids finally take notice of Steve, the way Steve wanted them to. The attention he gets from the football coach, who draws on his old relationship with Bucky to try out for the team. How cheerleaders start talking to him. The invites to gatherings and social events and parties.

And Tony knows how it goes. He ran with the popular crowd, back at his old prep school. He knows how the system works, knows how to twist it and game it and use it to his advantage. But that was Tony Stark, suave and tailored and flamboyantly forward. Here, he has no leverage in it. Here, he’s Edward Carter, a slightly awkward geek in off-the-rack clothing, quiet and withdrawn.

He tries anyway, for Steve’s sake. He fails, because he doesn’t know how to make Edward Carter work the same way Tony Stark does. He wants to be Tony Stark again, but that’s not who Steve fell in love with. That’s not who Steve wants.

Only… he’s pretty sure Steve doesn’t really want him as Edward Carter anymore, anyway. He knows, because he listens to gossip, that there was at least one party Steve attended in the last few weeks that Tony wasn’t invited to. He knows Steve’d gone out to celebrate making the football team before he even told Tony. That Steve’s developing a whole life that doesn’t seem to have any room in it for Tony.

And it _hurts_.

Tony doesn’t want to be _that guy,_ the clingy boyfriend, the buzzkill, because Steve is frankly an awesome person, skinny or buff, and deserves people to notice and like him. He knows Steve is new at all this, doesn’t know how to manage popularity. Tony could help him, but that would mean admitting everything to Steve. Who he is, why he’s under an assumed identity. He wants to, longs desperately for it, but can’t afford to. Jarvis has taught him too well the value of keeping this secret.

He stabs discontentedly at his salad with his fork, chin propped on his fist, mood getting darker and bleaker. Eventually, Steve breaks off from the group of giggling cheerleaders, and jogs over to Tony’s table with a breathless smile. “Hey you,” he says, sitting down with a thump and a huff.

“Hey,” Tony mutters, not looking up from his plate. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve blink and lean back in confusion. “What do you want?”

“What do I…” Steve blinks again, and there’s honest confusion in his voice. “I want to have lunch with my boyfriend.”

Tony closes his eyes, anger pounding in his temples like a migraine. “That’s nice,” he says. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

There’s a long pause, and Tony imagines the look on Steve’s face. Hurt, stung, contrite maybe. “You’re upset with me,” Steve says slowly, in a tone so neutral Tony can’t read anything from it. “Why?”

“Why? Are you kidding me?” Tony opens his eyes and glares. “Why would I possibly be upset, Steve? Couldn’t be that this is the first you’ve actually come to sit with me in a week for lunch. Couldn’t be that I have to learn all about your new friends and the stuff you’re doing through the gossip network. Couldn’t be that you’ve _abandoned_ me now that you’re big and strong and can hang with the popular crowd.”

Steve rears back, like Tony just slapped him, and his eyes are wide. “Tony… I didn’t…”

“Yes, you did,” Tony snaps. “You make plans without thinking about me. You decide to do things like try out for teams, and don’t tell me until after they’re already done. You don’t text me anymore, except for one or two words, and sometimes, I get texts that are meant for other people, so I know you’re distracted.”

With every word, Steve goes whiter and whiter, his eyes wider and more stricken. “I…”

The anger drains suddenly, leaving Tony exhausted. He sighs a long, deep sigh and closes his eyes. “Look, I get it, okay?” he says, in a much calmer tone. “I get that you’ve always wanted to fit in with the popular kids. I get that you’re happy. Believe me, I understand.” He squeezes his eyes shut, has to pry the next words out of his reluctant throat. “But I can’t do this anymore. I think it’s time we called it off.”

“What?” Steve’s voice is thin, high, frantic. “Tony… Tony, no.”

“Yes,” Tony gets out, and opens his eyes in time to pull his hands away from Steve’s grasping fingers. “I don’t fit anywhere in your life anymore, Steve. There’s no room for me. And I’m worth more than twiddling my thumbs waiting for your attention while you run around with your new besties.” He shoves himself away from the table, eyes suddenly burning with tears. “Goodbye, Steve.”

“Tony. _Tony. Please.”_ Steve hooks his hand out, manages to snag him by the wrist. Tony braces to fight against Steve’s strength, but he doesn’t try to pull Tony close, just keeps him in one spot. Steve’s eyes are shiny, shimmering, miserable. “Tony. I love you.”

Hearing it doesn’t bring him the same satisfaction, the warm curl of belonging with someone, that it always has in the past. Now, it’s just a cold lump, sitting like an ice cube below his breastbone. “You’ll get over it,” he says evenly, and pulls his wrist free.

\------

Tony skips out on the rest of the day, and manages to make it home without breaking down into tears on some suburban side street. The front door is unlocked, and Tony slams the door behind him, kicking his shoes into the wall. He wants to cry, scream, break things, play stupid love songs and eat ice cream on the couch. He wants to rush back and make up with Steve now. He wants to crawl into bed and not come out again for a year.

“Dad! I’m home!” he calls instead, because that melodramatic stereotypical crap has never been his style. The ice cream is acceptable, but sobbing over shitty love songs like “With or Without You” is _definitely_ not on his to do list. “I’m going to grab a snack and head out to the garage, so if you hear a lot of loud banging, I’m making science.” He moves around the open frame into the kitchen and stops dead. And stares. And feels the blood drain from his face.

Obadiah Stane leans on the counter, a wide, friendly smile on his face. “Tony, my boy,” he says, cheerful like it’s only been a few weeks and not years since they’ve seen each other. “I’ve been looking for you for quite awhile. I gotta say, you and the old man really gave me a run for my money.”

Tony licks his suddenly-dry lips. “How’d you find us?”

Stane shrugs broadly, and the smile widens. It reminds Tony of a shark’s grin, right before it chomps down. “You accessed your money, Tony,” he says, _tsk_ ing, and straightens from the counter. “I admit, it took me awhile to backtrace the request. You were clever enough to cover your tracks. You just weren’t clever enough.”

Tony takes a step back, calculates how far it is to the front door, how long it’ll take him to yank open the door, run into the street, scream for help. “Where’s Jarvis?”

“The old man’s earned his retirement,” Stane says pleasantly. “He’s somewhere nice and quiet, where no one will disturb him. Or find him.” Stane tilts his head, stares at Tony in a greedy, thoughtful way that sends chills racing up and down his spine. “I was just going to kill you, you know,” he adds, offhandedly. “But I had a look in your garage. You’ve got quite a brain on you. I think you might be smarter than Howard. I can use that genius.”

Tony bolts, sliding on sock feet down the hall towards the front door, his heart pounding in his head. Behind him, Stane chuckles. “That’s really cute, Tony.” Tony reaches the front door as Stane ambles behind him, in no rush. He fumbles with the doorknob, yanks the door open and…

Screeches to a halt, staring with wide eyes at the barrel of the gun pointed at his face. The man aiming it looks like a government man, dark suit and mirror shades and unamused expression. “That’s it, kid,” he says. “Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

Tony raises his hands and backs up, breathing in short, panicked breaths. He can’t take his eyes off the gun, his whole world narrowing down to that round, black hole. His mouth and throat are dry, and fear sends shivers of adrenaline racing through his blood. He trembles when Stane’s hand falls on his shoulder, a big meaty paw that feels like the Sword of Damocles dropping.

“You’re not going anywhere, Tony,” Stane says, avuncular and jovial. “Unless I want you to.”

**oOoOoOo**

Tony spends a lot of time post-mission staring at the card Hawkeye gave him, flipping it over and over with his fingers. With no actual fight, the armor took no damage, meaning his usual post-mission ritual of repairing the dents and damaged circuitry isn’t necessary. So he’s left with this, staring at a card handed to him by a guy who thinks bows and arrows are the height of offensive technology.

He’s still flipping the card later that evening, in the limo with Wanda, staring at the words. It would be so easy to call now, get them all out now… but Tony knows they’d be hunted forever if they do it.

“Are you ready for this, Tony?” Wanda asks quietly, checking her makeup one last time in her compact before tucking it back into her clutch. Under her breath she mutters, “I still think I should have gone with the black dress. Black looks good on everyone.”

Tony gives her the once-over, tucks the card away into his inner jacket pocket. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the deep, wine-red cocktail dress she ultimately chose. Tony might have advised her to go easier on the eyeliner, but they’re her eyes, not his, so he keeps his mouth shut. “You look breathtaking,” Tony says honestly. “The color brings out the highlights in your hair. Gives you this whole…” He waggles his hand in her direction. “… exotic look.”

Wanda’s eyes widen in pleased surprise, and her smile is bashful, a flush spreading across her cheeks. She turns to pick up her shawl and drape it across her shoulders. “Are you ready for this?”

Tony shrugs as the car draws to a halt. “Does it matter?” Beyond the tinted glass, there are already flashes of cameras going off, the dull roar of a crowd hopefully held back by adequate security. He slips his tinted glasses on, double-checks to make sure his bow tie is straight and no arc reactor light escapes the blackout panel under his white dress shirt. “Time to put on a show,” he says, then pastes on his best playboy grin. He opens the car door, and steps out into flashbulbs and cries of his name, pausing only to offer Wanda a hand out of the car.

\-----

The gala is already being hailed as the party of the year, and it’s barely been an hour and a half. Tony’s shaken more hands and forgotten more names than he remembers, danced his way through what he’s sure is half the eligible women in New York City and a tenth of the eligible men.

He makes sure no one ever sees him without a drink in hand, though no one but he, Wanda and the bartender he paid handsomely will ever know that only two of his many drinks were alcoholic. Wanda comes and goes, playing the role of Tony’s personal assistant, bringing him important people to meet every now and then. Tony’s frankly impressed at her acting ability, because he never would have pegged her for it, but she’s doing beautifully.

The only hiccup of the night comes when Wanda brings him face to face with his apparent head of security. “Mr. Stark, this is Roger Grant.”

Tony turns with a broad smile, holding out his hand, and looks up in the shocked blue eyes of Steve Rogers. For a moment he wants to freeze, he wants to fall into Steve’s arms, roll back the years, go back to when they were seventeen and stupid in love… But none of that’s possible.

So he forces his face to not react, forces his eyes to show no sign of recognition. “Hi Roger,” he says. “Glad to meet you. Call me Tony, cos Mr. Stark just sounds way too much like my father. Now, as your boss, I will do my absolute best to not make your job any harder, but I guarantee nothing.”

For a long moment, Steve doesn’t move, blink, or otherwise react, and his eyes cloud over with uncertainty. “Hello sir,” he says, belatedly taking Tony’s hand and shaking it with a firm grip. “Looking forward to the job.” He hesitates another moment, and Tony can see the question coming before Steve says it. “Sorry, have we met before?”

It’s only been a handful of years, but Tony Stark bears almost no resemblance to Edward Carter anymore. If Steve looked in his eyes, maybe there’d be no hiding it, no way to brush it off, but he’s wearing his tinted glasses, which he is suddenly grateful he had the whim to do. “I think I’d remember someone like you,” Tony says easily, letting the corner of his mouth curl into a salacious smirk. “But I get that a lot. Just one of those faces, I guess.”

Steve’s forehead is furrowed. “I guess,” he echoes, then shakes himself out of it. “Sorry, sir. I’m…” Breaks off again, shakes his head again. “Sorry sir. I should go see to the security arrangements. It was nice meeting you.”

Tony’s never been so grateful for a person looking to get out of his presence as soon as possible. “Of course, Roger. I’ll see you around.” He pats Steve on the shoulder and moves away, mingles cheerfully for another five, ten minutes, and then excuses himself to the bathroom from his current conversation.

Only when he’s in the bathroom by himself, door locked and secured, does he start shaking. He leans heavily on the counter around a sink, head hanging over the basin, and does his level best to not hyperventilate. God, what the hell is Steve doing working under an assumed name? Why is he even here?

He figures the answer’s going to start with the letters S, H and I, and end with an E, L and a D, because they can’t keep their noses out of anything. “God,” he groans, rubbing his face with both hands, contemplating the immediate future of pretending like he doesn’t know exactly who Steve is, doesn’t know how Steve feels, how he looks when he’s asleep. This might not be the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, but it’s definitely in the top seven.

He can’t do this. There’s no humanly way possible he’s ever going to be able to keep up a charade like that. There’s no way he can look into Steve’s baby blues on an even semi-regular basis and keep lying his ass off to him.

But he knows he’s going to anyway, maintain it as long as he can, because what other choice does he have? _You could tell Steve the truth,_ points out a traitorous portion of his mind. _Just tell him everything._ Tony stares at his own face in the mirror and scoffs. Right. If telling Steve the truth were an option, he would have done so years ago.

“Game on, Stark,” he whispers to the pale, shocky-eyed man in the mirror. “Get your game face on. Remain on mission. Pull it together. It’s just Steve. It’s just Steve.”

But that’s really the problem, he thinks bitterly as he splashes cold water on his face and pats it dry, as he slips his tinted glasses back on and checks to see if he’s presentable. That’s the exact problem. It’s just Steve, and for Tony, it’s always been _about_ just Steve.

He takes a deep, centering breath as he puts his hand on the doorknob, then pulls it open and waltzes back into the party with the trademark Stark family smirk firmly in place across his face, letting the noise of the music and conversations try to wash away the feeling of a pair of brilliant blue eyes watching him from across the room.

###  **Part IV: Heavy Metal Broke My Heart**

_Five years ago_

Tony’s world is distorted by water. He drowns over and over again until he’s coughing, gasping, begging for them to tell him what they want, he’ll do anything, give them anything. They put him to work when they’re sure they’ve beaten all thought of escape or rebellion out of him, give him paper and pencils, stand over him with crossed arms and heavy body odor to make sure he’s doing what he’s told.

But rough men with rough minds don’t have a prayer of keeping track of Tony Stark. Not even daily baptisms in the pool of dirty water they keep in his cell can crush the tiny spark of rebellion in his soul. His first attempt at escape results in six men dead and a chest full of shrapnel.

Tony’s world is invaded by pain and blood. He dies over and over again until he’s choking on copper, until he can’t breathe past the crushing pressure in his chest. He kicks and flails, screaming his throat into a raw, hoarse whisper, until he doesn’t have the strength to kick and shriek anymore. The rough men with rough minds are gone when he wakes up, hypoxic and choking, and sad-eyed Ho Yinsen is there instead, nursing him back to health and back to work.

They think the last dregs of independent thought, of fierceness, of defiance, have been crushed out of him by his botched escape attempt. They put fire in his hands then, fire to match the fever raging in his blood, the roaring bonfire of his primary thought: _escape or die trying_.

His world is now a crucible, shaped by agony and flames, quenched in oily water and blood. It forges his body, shedding the last pounds of baby fat, molding lean, hard muscles in his arms and shoulders. With Yinsen’s help, the car battery comes out, and the palladium reactor goes in. With Yinsen’s help, the weapons the rough men want him to create become _his_ weapon.

He fights his way out, half-dead and starving, but defiant to the end, repurposed firearms, flamethrowers and missiles turned against their owners. He loses Yinsen, but gains his freedom, leaves the camp a smoking ruin, and wanders delirious into the desert.

His ghosts follow him. His father harangues him as he staggers through the sand, his mother smiles sadly at him. Yinsen’s voice echoes in his ears: _you are a good man, Tony._ His thirst is unbearable, his stomach so shrunken he doesn’t even register hunger anymore. But Tony’s eyes are fever-bright as he staggers through the merciless dunes.

His father always said that Stark men are made of iron, but Tony is tempered steel. He is chrome. He is high-grade titanium alloy. Obadiah Stane cannot break him. Men who keep him in a cave cannot break him. The ghost of Howard Stark cannot break him. Lesser people might have stumbled and fallen, lain down in the dirt and died, but Tony keeps moving, with ghosts and phantasms of people he’s met and people he hasn’t dancing in and out of his vision.

When he collapses, strong arms catch him, bear him away. In his haze of delirium, he smiles and says _Steve?_

“No,” his saviour says brusquely. “I am Strucker.”

**oOoOoOo**

Tony might sometimes wish he’d died in the desert before Strucker found him, but he’s got to give the man credit where it’s due. He promised Tony he’d get Stark Industries back, and he made good on his word. Tony’s sat in the Big Boy Chair for three months now, haunted by a pair of redheads who seem intent on ruining his enjoyment of life, and a blond with hard, sharp eyes who refuses to stop staring at him. Between Pepper, Natalie and “Roger”, Tony’s lucky he doesn’t suffer from nightmares.

Still, it’s not all bad. He has cutting-edge research and development labs to play around in, and takes a special delight in horrifying his senior engineers by fully admitting he has no formal training before he starts inventing. He enjoys the looks on their faces when they realize that, uneducated as he is, he can still invent rings around them, and then invent more rings while they’re still trying to comprehend the first set of rings.

The first thing he does is upgrade all the technology in the building to his cutting-edge holo-displays, because all that tapping and sketching and using styluses and screens just slows him down. He’s much faster, much more intuitive with his hands dancing through blue light. And Wanda’s just beyond his door, playing personal assistant — a job she is _frighteningly_ good at, for someone who started doing it the same day he started being CEO — and somewhere in the building, Pietro is delivering letters between the floors.

If it wasn’t for Pepper trying to manage him into doing public relations-related things, and Natalie from Legal finding any old excuse she can to lurk in his office, and Steve in his office on the other side of the floor (but somehow almost always being around to loom over Tony’s shoulder whenever he sets a toe beyond his door), this reclaiming-his-birthright thing would be a pretty sweet deal.

But Steve _is_ there every time he steps outside his door. Pepper _is_ trying to manage him into PR things, and Natalie _is_ trying to make him have a heart attack every time he turns around and comes face to face with her, without ever hearing her come in. It gets to the point where Tony feels hunted in his own building, and he’s constantly checking over his shoulder for the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Frightening.

 **oOoOoOo  
** _Four Years Ago_

His second suit of armor is much more advanced than the basic tank-on-two-legs he cobbled together in the cave. Sometimes, late at night when it’s just him with his darker thoughts and whispering demons, he thinks about MIT and how his life might have gone, but Strucker spares no expense in making sure he has the most up-to-date information and instructional materials at his disposal. It’s all paper and texts, and a laptop with an arsenal of DVD lectures. It isn’t exactly cutting edge, but he makes do with what he has.

It’s not like this drafty-ass castle in the butthole of Europe has WiFi, after all. As long as he has coffee, music and uninterrupted time to work, he can science the shit out of whatever he needs to.

He picks up the faceplate from the corner of his bench and downs his coffee while he stares at it. Mark II resembles its big brother not at all, which helped somewhat with the flashbacks he’s been suffering. Every time he lifted the hammer to pound steel and aluminum into shape, a phantom breeze hit his face, and he had to take five minutes to get his shit together before he could continue.

Just goes to show, he supposes, that he can put on all the weight and muscle mass he lost, have Strucker’s best doctors fix as much of the internal damage as possible – and they’re absolutely fucking phenomenal at what they do. Light years ahead of generally accessible medicine. They’ve rebuilt his collarbone and breastbone, seated the arc reactor in a more stable location and regenerated the worst of his scars, but even they couldn’t dig the shrapnel fragments out of his bloodstream – but the mental trauma is going to linger forever.

He sets the faceplate aside, and sighs as he spins his laptop to face him. “Don’t think of Yinsen,” he mutters to himself as he inputs the commands to bring up the OS transfer. “Don’t think of Yinsen, don’t think of Yinsen.”

His hands are shaking by the time the progress bar has reached 100%, and he wants to take a really long nap, just to get the inevitable nightmares over with, but faint hearts ne’er flew shiny titanium power armor.

“Alright,” he says, though there’s no one to hear him, slaps his hands together and rubs them in anticipation. “Let’s see what this bitch is capable of.”

\-----

This bitch is capable of a lot. If he ever wants to mass produce personal flight suits, Tony will make enough money to retire to the moon.

Everything tests well into the green, including the experimental weapons tech. The nice thing, if there is a nice thing, about being in the butthole of Europe is that there’s lots of mountains and wilderness without a soul around to get caught in the crossfire.

God, it’s so _peaceful_ up here. Nothing but him and the suit and the wide-open sky. If he could get away with it, he’d stay up here forever, his own personal flight suit of solitude.

He’s reminded a moment later that solitude is illusionary at best when the communications channels chirp, and Strucker’s voice says, “Stark, are you there?”

He closes his eyes, resists the urge to sigh. Oh well. Five minutes of peace and quiet and zero worries is better than none, he supposes. “Yeah, I’m here. What do you need?”

“How go the tests, Mr. Stark?” Tony knows Strucker doesn’t give half a shit about the tests; Strucker’s good, but Stane was the epitome of lying out of one side of his mouth and making arrangements for betrayal with the other. Strucker’s not even close to Stane’s level of bullshit.

But if Strucker’s at least paying him lip service by pretending to be interested in him for more than his brain and natural gifts, Tony can do the same. “They’re fine. Everything’s green. Most of the mountain range is still standing, and with the exception of two tiny hitches, I’m still flying after an hour. I’m calling this a tentative success.”

“Good, good,” Strucker says, and Tony smirks to himself. Here it comes, just like he knew it would. “Mr. Stark, you are in the vicinity of a facility run by one of my peers. He has been out of communication for some time now, and we’re growing concerned about his dedication to the cause. How do you feel about field-testing your armor?”

Tony rolls his eyes. Ah yes, the mysterious “cause” that crops up in conversation every so often. If Tony never hears the phrase again, he’ll die a happy man. “Sure,” he says, with just the right amount of confusion and enthusiasm. “Send me the co-ordinates and I’ll take care of … what is it you want done, exactly?”

Strucker sounds pleased, and of course he is, the bastard. “Doctor List runs our genetic research program, which includes biological experimentation as well as studies on the mysteries of the human genome. If he has gone rogue, I shudder to think at what he might have done without responsible supervision.”

“And if he hasn’t gone rogue?”

“In that case,” and Strucker’s voice is polite and chilled, “recover all data from the facility servers. If there’s been an accident or attack, salvage what you can. If there’s been a communications failure, well, the good Doctor is just going to have to accept the new requirement of off-site backups.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll get it done.”

“Excellent. I am sending you the co-ordinates now. Strucker out.”

Tony eyeballs the co-ords as they scroll across the HUD, and tries not to think about what’s really going on behind the scenes. He’s well fucking aware that Strucker treats him like a mushroom, kept in the dark, away from populated areas, fed a steady diet of shit, and he knows that there’s a lot the Baron doesn’t even hint at.

He changes his course after the suit crunches through the necessary calculations, and lets his mind work through the possibilities. But no matter what pathway his ponderings take him down, whether he’s signed up on the periphery of a bunch of super-secretive Mother Teresa types or whether he’s evil-adjacent to the best organized pack of shitheels on the face of the planet, it doesn’t change the fact that he has a really, really bad feeling about this.

\-----

The facility is in flames. Tony sees the thick columns of smoke roping into the sky from miles away. He swears under his breath and readjusts his arms and legs to better streamline the armor, picking up infinitesimal speed for his dive from the high cloud ceiling. Whatever happened here, he’ll be damned if he can tell, despite the many, many readings his suit is recording and displaying for him to ignore, but it happened very quickly and very _thoroughly._

He drops out of the sky fifty meters from the inferno, falling heavily to a knee as something in his right leg stutters, catches himself on a down-flung fist. “Ow,” he groans after the shock finishes reverberating up his arm, and he shakes his fingers out as he stands up. “Okay, now what the actual fuck is happening here.”

Clanking as he moves, Tony takes a walk around the facility, letting all that fine, delicate instrumentation he installed do its work and figure it out for him. He has no idea how his suit will fare up to the hottest flames, so he avoids those, which means he avoids the majority of the complex. He has a feeling that Strucker would cheerfully send him into the heart of the sun if he thought he could benefit from it, so that little fact won’t be going in his after-report.

The one part of the complex that hasn’t seen more than heavy smoke damage yet are the archival outbuildings, located well away from what his readings are telling him is the likely ignition point of the blaze which, as best as he can tell from the shitty and confusion blueprints Strucker helpfully-not-helpfully included in the data package that followed receipt of the co-ordinates, were genetics laboratories. If he’s going to recover anything from this self-contained cataclysm, it’ll probably be there.

It’s all there.

Horrifically, it’s all there, every single abominable scrap of graphic, detailed documentation of List’s human experimentation. On children.

His stomach roils and churns, and he staggers out of the building to lift his faceplate and retch up his long-drunk coffee. When he’s done dry-heaving after that, he stands, wipes his mouth with a handful of snow scooped up from the ground and snaps his faceplate down again, letting the wet, cold snow shock him out of wanting to sit down and bawl like a baby.

“Jesus fucking God,” he says shakily. “Yeah, Strucker. Sorry. You’re not getting your hands on a _shred_ of this shit.” He raises his arm, queuing a tankbuster missile, already planning in his head how he’s going to spin coming back empty-handed to sound plausible and understandable. Weapons malfunction, probably. _The tech is new,_ he can hear himself saying, _I was looking for the data you wanted, and a missile fell out of its housing._ No, too eyebrow-raising. _There was a nuke from outer space._ Way too implausible.

Eh, he’ll figure it out. It’s going to be a long flight back, after all.

He feels much better when his tiny little missile does a really, really good job at wiping that archive off the face of the fucking earth.

“Okay, new mission,” he says to himself, making his tone chipper and upbeat in the hopes he can trick his own brain into forgetting that horror he just annihilated. “Make sure this place burns to fucking _ash.”_ He turns around, spins the jets in preparation for takeoff, and stops dead.

From somewhere, the treeline if he has to make a guess, a pair of teenagers have crept out to watch him. A girl and a boy, alike enough in facial structure to be closely related, probably no more than sixteen. Neither is dressed for the elements, in oversized, clearly borrowed clothing and shoes, but from the remnants of the hospital gowns and wrist bands make it painfully obvious that these two were not staff here.

“Hi,” he says dumbly, because honestly, what the fuck do you say to two kids who were probably prisoners at a laboratory even Satan would be disgusted by?

The boy tilts his head. “Are you a robot?” he asks in moderately accented English.

“What?” Belatedly, Toni realizes that the broadcast capabilities of the suit must render his voice mechanical. “Oh.” He flips up the faceplate and smiles tentatively at them. “Nope. Perfectly human. It’s a suit. Um…” He looks around, even though he hasn’t the foggiest what he’s actually looking for. “Can I do something for you? Ride to the nearest town, or something?”

The girl shakes her head, keeps watching him, wary and wordless. The boy shrugs easily. “We will manage,” he says, and his head tilts the other way. “Why have you come here?”

A chill shrieks down Tony’s spine. With little more than a shift of the head, both of them are eyeing him like hungry wolves, just waiting for a misstep. He swallows quietly and chooses his words very, very carefully. “I was sent to find out what happened to this facility by Baron Strucker, retrieve data if I could.”

And there it is, the sudden tensing of muscles. He might not have noticed it if he hadn’t been watching for it. Despite the fact that they’re covertly threatening him, Tony’s respect for them both shoots way, way up. One survivor to a pair of others.

“As I said, that’s what I was sent here to do.” He gestures at the charred, bombed-out archives. “Clearly, there’s no data worth retrieving. So I’m instead going to make sure no one can ever retrieve it.”

“Good.” The thus-far silent girl looks at him with fierce, haunted eyes. “Let it burn.”

**oOoOoOo**

Tony crosses his arms and tries to remain unaffected as he waits for the elevator to show up. He’s gained a shadow, approximately six-four, built like quarterback and silent as a shade. He’d like to say he succeeds at remaining unaffected, but his nerves are frazzled and fraying, about ready to snap.

He stares at Steve’s reflection in the highly-polished metal, eyebrow arched and head down so he can peer over the top rim of his tinted shades. Steve’s staring back at him in the reflection, and his face shows nothing.

“I’m capable of getting lunch by myself,” Tony says, much to his great surprise. “You don’t have to turn into a stalker, honeybunches. I’m perfectly fine to wander to the deli on the corner without someone to hold my hand.”

Steve’s eyes widen, perhaps shocked to it by the fact that Tony said something for once, instead of going through the motions of their usual silent staring contest. His recovery time is quick, though; in less than ten seconds, he’s straightened up, looking professional in his crisp button-down and slacks, and Tony just wants to rip it all off with—

Redact that thought. Tony just wants to redact that thought with fire, before it can infect and spread to the rest of his thoughts.

“Just doing my job, Mr. Stark,” Steve says blandly, with an equally bland smile. “You’re an important man with important things on your schedule. I’m just here to make your schedule as hardship-free as possible, sir.”

“You are a hardship,” Tony snaps, and immediately takes a deep breath, squeezing his hand into a fist, fingernails digging half-moons into his palm, to try and remind himself to keep his mouth shut. Steve’s reflection is wearing an innocent expression, and Tony grinds his teeth together. Where the _hell_ is that elevator? “I don’t need security following me around. And stop calling me Mr. Stark, for chrissake.”

Steve’s reflection smiles at him. “Whatever you say, Tony.”

Tony represses a shiver, because Steve’s voice is lethal, smoky around the syllables of his name. He gives Steve’s reflection another dirty look and blessedly, blissfully, the elevator doors finally open. Tony scuttles in as fast as dignity allows and hits the button for the main floor, breathing a sigh of relief.

Steve steps in behind him, and the doors ding shut. Tony wants to cry.

The ride down is tense and silent, and Tony fidgets from foot to foot, anxiously watching the numbers above the doors tick down. _C’mon, c’mon._

Abruptly, Steve reaches past him, so close Tony gets a whiff of his aftershave, and his eyes slide to half-mast, lust spiking through his body. The elevator jerks to a stop as Steve flips the emergency stop switch, and he turns to face Tony.

Tony eyes him, trying to project the aura of a boss annoyed by his underling’s antics. He’s fairly sure he’s botching it spectacularly. Steve regards him steadily, eyes narrowed and speculative, raking over his face again and again.

“Edward Carter,” he finally says, and the last hope Tony had that Steve hadn’t recognized him dies a brief, but violent, fiery death.

But instead of blurting everything out right then and there, if years too late, he blinks once and says, in his best I’m-dealing-with-recalcitrant-assholes bored tone, “Who?”

Steve’s head tilts slightly to the side. “My first boyfriend. He broke up with me senior year of high school and went missing hours later.”

Tony scoffs. “Sounds like a real winner there. By the way, why are you telling me this? Did I become your therapist without noticing? Should I be getting paid for this?”

“ _Tony._ ” Steve frowns at him, and folds his arms. It pulls the material of his shirt tight across his shoulders in ways that should probably be illegal in at least a few states, and Tony’s mouth goes dry. “I have to admit, you’re a good actor. When you didn’t even bat an eyelash when your PA introduced me, I thought I was mistaken. That you just looked a lot like him. But I know you, Tony. Why are you pretending that you don’t know me?”

Tony is tired. So very, very tired. He’s tired of a double, triple life. He’s tired of not sleeping. He’s tired of old memories and Baron Strucker and fighting with the Avengers every time he steps into the armor. He’s just tired of everything. “What do you want me to say, Steve?” he says, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against the cool metal of the elevator wall. “Hi, ex-boyfriend. By the way, my name is really Tony Stark, and when I met you, I was on the run hiding from my father’s business partner who killed him and almost certainly wanted to kill me. Oh, and by the way, I broke up with you because you were being an ass, but we might have been able to work things out, except the previously-mentioned business partner found me and kidnapped me literally hours later.”

Steve arches an eyebrow. “For starters.”

Tony smirks, bitter and humorless. “How the hell would you even begin to understand all that? I’m not sure I understand it, and I _lived_ through it.”

Steve makes a movement, swaying forward and back, like he started to step toward Tony and then thought better about it. “You could have tried,” he says, and Tony bristles, spins around with his shoulders bunched, ready for a fight, but there’s no anger or recrimination on Steve’s face. His eyes are shadowed, hooded, thoughtful. “I would have tried to understand, Tony. I really would have.”

Tony’s shoulders slump and he rubs tiredly at his eyes. “Maybe,” he says, without much conviction. He wants to break into wild peals of laughter, hopeless and hysterical, because he wants to tell Steve _everything._ He always has. “It’s just… It’s complicated.”

“It always is.” Steve’s arms loosen, drop out of the forbidding cross across his chest. Tony looks up at the motion, watches Steve’s adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I’ve missed you, you know,” he says softly.

Tony snorts, because it’s sarcasm or sobbing. “Sure,” he says. “Edward Carter. Unforgettable.”

This time, Steve _does_ step forward, right into Tony’s personal space. Tony jerks backwards a pace, coming up against the wall of the elevator. “You _were_ ,” Steve says, eyes dark and searching. “You’re the reason I–” He breaks off with a pained look, rubbing his hands down his cheeks. It’s such a _Steve_ gesture that Tony’s heart skips a beat. Steve closes his eyes, leans one forearm against the wall of the elevator, and sighs deeply. “I never gave up looking for you,” he says quietly. His eyes open, deep and blue and brilliant. “ _Ever.”_

Tony’s breath catches for a moment in his lungs, wants to turn the clock back five years, give Steve a chance to fix his mistakes, get the time to fix his own mistakes. But he can’t do that, and he can’t do this. He shakes his head. “Steve, I… Can’t. It’s a mistake.”

“Not a mistake,” Steve says with a tiny smile, and reaches out to cup Tony’s cheek. Tony makes a noise deep in the back of his throat, tries and fails to not nuzzle into Steve’s palm. “We have never been a mistake.” His face falls then, just a little, just enough to stab Tony in the heart. “Have we?”

“Maybe not,” Tony says heavily. “But this is–mmph.” Before he knows what’s happening, Steve is flush against him, one hand still cupping Tony’s cheek, the other brushing Tony’s hair away from his forehead. “We have got to talk about personal space,” Tony croaks, throat suddenly bone-dry.

“Tony.” And it should really be goddamn illegal for Steve’s voice to do that, the low, husky rumble, because it still has the power to flip Tony upside down. “Can I kiss you?”

 _No._ Tony’s going to say it. He has to say it. There are far too many reasons why he has to say it. But when he opens his mouth, what comes out is a breathy, “Yes.”

Steve lowers his head, eyes slipping closed. Tony can’t hear anything but his own heartbeat thundering through his temples. He wants to freeze, run away, shoot his way out. Anything to not be here. Anything to stay here forever. God, he’s so messed up. And then it stops mattering. Because Steve’s mouth settles over his, delicate as a butterfly, and Tony’s done fighting.

It’s tentative and uncertain, featherlight contact, but Tony’s shaken to the core anyway. Steve doesn’t try to deepen the kiss, doesn’t lick Tony’s lip, doesn’t make a sound, just stands there with his eyes closed, one hand cupping Tony’s cheek, the other settled on Tony’s hip, barely touching, almost chastely kissing…

And Tony’s never felt such _reverence_ for anything in his life.

It lasts forever, it lasts only a handful of moments, but when Steve pulls back, his eyes are shining and bright. He strokes his thumb over Tony’s cheekbone, gentle and slow. There’s a fine tremor running through Steve. Tony can feel the vibration thrumming under his fingers on Steve’s shoulders. Tony’s eyes burn with sudden, scalding liquid, because … because…  

“I still love you, Steve,” he chokes out, and the tears scorch lines of fire down his cheeks. “I always loved you. I never stopped.”

The world holds its breath, and Steve goes statue-still. Tony desperately wants to be anywhere else in the world, even back in the cave, as he waits in agonizing silence for Steve to process and understand what he just said. Tony moves a shaking hand, touches Steve’s cheek, just a brush of fingertips over smooth, taut skin.

Steve makes a noise in the back of his throat, sharp and guttural, and Tony whimpers involuntarily.

His back hits the wall with a metallic thump, and Steve crowds into his space, pressing into Tony with long, lean muscles radiating heat like a blazing fire. “We,” he says, voice soft and eyes fierce, “are never a mistake.”

Tony is frozen like a deer in headlights, staring into Steve’s brilliant blue eyes. He licks his lips, sees Steve’s gaze flick down, feels a low curl of heat at the slow, satisfied smile that curves one corner of Steve’s mouth. “Kiss me,” someone says, hoarse and pleading, and Tony realizes it’s him.

Steve’s mouth settles over his again, and a whisper of breath brushes Tony’s lips, shaky and hot. That tremor Tony felt in Steve is an earthquake now, leashed power, restrained strength, and desire spikes hard and sharp enough to take his knees out from under him.

He is shocked, but not surprised, to realize the depth of his need to see that power let off the chain. A moan rolls out of his throat, and he seizes Steve’s head, digging his nails into the back of his neck. Steve grunts in surprise, but when Tony hauls him closer, opening his mouth in clear invitation, Steve doesn’t hesitate and picks Tony up for better access, forearms bands of hard muscle under Tony’s ass.

“Missed you so much,” Steve murmurs into his mouth, in between searing, wet kisses, and Tony opens eagerly for each one with breathless noises. “Never gave up hope. Never stopped looking. Missed you so much.”

“Missed you too,” Tony murmurs back, carding his hands through Steve’s hair, running his fingertips over the planes of Steve’s face. His head is swimming, because the smell of Steve’s skin, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his muscles rippling under Tony’s hands is heady and intoxicating, like a fine snifter of brandy. “God. So much.”

“Let me take you out,” Steve says, breaking away from Tony’s mouth to press hot kisses to his jaw, his throat, the side of his neck.

When his teeth scrape over Tony’s earlobe, Tony shudders hard, tips his head to the side and mewls, cradling Steve’s head with one hand. “Out?” he says, hazy and dazed.

“Mmm.” The vibrations from Steve’s wordless assent rock through him, and Tony hisses in a breath. “Coffee. Dinner. A movie. Let me take you out on a date.”

He needs to say no to this. He needs to stop it now. It’s already too late to take the words back, it’s too late to deny his feelings. It’s far too late to pretend like Steve hasn’t noticed how very turned on and into this making-out-on-the-wall thing he is, not pressed into Steve’s abdomen like he is. To pretend like Steve isn’t just as aroused. It’s far too late to take it all back. But he needs to stop it from going farther.

 _No,_ he thinks, as Steve nips and nibbles down his neck, and he makes needy, whiny noises and scrabbles at Steve’s shoulder. _No. No. No._

“Yes,” he moans, and doesn’t try to correct himself because Steve’s shining, bright expression and happy, deep kisses are impossible to resist.

This is the biggest mistake he’s ever going to make.

Oh well. This is going to crash and burn in the biggest, most explosive way possible and he knows that, but fuck it. He might as well enjoy himself as the plane is screaming towards the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Links!
> 
> My Tumblr - [allthemarvelousrage](allthemarvelousrage.tumblr.com)  
> Miko's Deviant Art - [KakushiMiko](http://kakushimiko.deviantart.com/)  
> (never meant for you to) fix yourself [gallery on DeviantArt](http://kakushimiko.deviantart.com/art/never-meant-for-you-to-fix-yourself-615368067)
> 
> And my faithful cheer squad of doom on AO3:  
> [silvershadowkit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silvershadowkit)  
> [Bragi151](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bragi151)  
> [lunamax1214](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lunamax1214)  
> [Medie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie)


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